1.1 Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns advertising. In particular, the present invention concerns processes for approving advertisements (referred to as “ads”), such as ads to be served with Web pages for example. The present invention also concerns enforcing policies on previously approved ads.
§1.2 Background Information
Advertising using traditional media, such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines, is well known. Recently, advertising over more interactive media has become popular. For example, as the number of people using the Internet has exploded, advertisers have come to appreciate media and services offered over the Internet as a potentially powerful way to advertise.
Web page-based ads (also referred to as “Web ads”) are often presented to their advertising audience in the form of “banner ads” (i.e., a rectangular box that includes graphic components). When a member of the advertising audience (referred to as a “viewer” or “user” in the Specification without loss of generality) selects one of these banner ads by clicking on it, embedded hypertext links typically direct the viewer to a page (which may be referred to as the “landing page” of the ad) of the advertiser's Website where they can be presented with marketing information and/or consummate a transaction.
Typically, various Websites place Web ads from various advertisers on their Web pages. By charging a fee for such placements from the advertiser, the Website gets a source of income. Further, some entities accept ads from advertisers and supply those ads to other entities to place on their Web pages or page views of those Web pages. This is sometimes referred to as “syndication.” Whether a Website serves ads on its own pages or on the pages of a syndication partner, such a Website may be referred to as an “ad network”.
Before placing an ad on its own Website, or syndicating an ad to another's Website, it is important to review the ad to ensure that it is correct and appropriate. Such a review may be used to identify such things as incorrect punctuation, capitalization, grammar, text spacing, or price, to name just a few. Also, such a review may be used to identify forbidden text, unacceptable content, improper lists, repetition, inappropriate superlatives, promotional offers, or serving constraints (e.g., targeting keywords) that are too general, among other things.
In some current ad networks, the number of ads that need to be reviewed can easily reach the thousands or tens-of-thousands. A manual review process is expensive and time-consuming, and is prone to human error. Thus, an improved ad review process is desired.